Whenever a tax is involved the issue is sure to be criticized, often with merit. But there is little to dislike about the recently created Kalispell Tourism Business Improvement District, which allows participating hotels to charge guests a $1.25 fee per night and use that money to promote tourism in the city. The room for growth in that sector is vast.
It was the hoteliers’ idea to implement the tax and the city council unanimously approved the idea. Both the Kalispell Chamber of Commerce and Flathead Building Association supported the move. In fact, there was little opposition to it at all since it won’t affect locals’ pocketbooks and essentially levels the playing field with other Montana cities that already have a TBID in place.
But even after money is raised, Kalispell faces its own set of unique challenges when marketing to potential visiters. The first question TBID board members must answer: What are you selling? I live in the middle of the city and would be hard-pressed to answer that.
There are obvious attractions, such as our museums, art galleries and parks, but packaging them in a way that differentiates Kalispell from its neighbors is another matter. The economic hub of the Flathead Valley must overcome some glaring disadvantages.
Columbia Falls is often considered the “Gateway to Glacier” and benefits from its location near the west entrance to the park. Bigfork, Somers and Lakeside each partially attract visitors by their proximity to Flathead Lake. And Whitefish is the quintessential tourist town that has consistently invested in marketing itself as a destination for recreation, dining and theater – in warm weather and cold. So, what’s left?
As TBID board members begin to meet they must make clear what kind of people they are trying lure. Kalispell is a working-class and affordable town centrally located in one of the most unique and pristine areas of the country. Can that combination be packaged into a brochure or advertisement? A professional marketer will be essential in the effort and clear benchmarks should be set to measure any plan’s effectiveness.
Recently, the Montana Office of Tourism spent $65,000, or about 18 percent of its summer magazine budget, on a four-page spread in the April 19 edition of New Yorker magazine. Whitefish and the Glacier Country Tourism region shared the cost. While that may look like a high price to pay for space in a weekly magazine, more than 1 million subscribers (in a demographic made up of mostly urban readers who are richer and travel more than average Americans) were told the following about the area by Missoula’s Jeff Hull:
“In Glacier Country – the swath of Montana lying west of the continental divide, from the Canadian border in the north to the Bitterroot Valley in the south – rivers are born of towering peaks raking snow from the sky and powered by steep ravines tilting into broad valleys. The Blackfeet call the mountains of the Continental Divide in and around Glacier National Park ‘the backbone of the world.’ The road that delivers you to its summit is called Going-to-the Sun, because it does.”
If that description appeals to me – and I live here – imagine the effect it could have on a day-trader reading it in his or her Manhattan cubicle.
The creation of the TBID is also timely in that this is Glacier’s centennial and more tourists are expected to arrive this summer. Hotel bookings in the park are up 10 percent compared to the previous year and there’s cautious optimism among travel experts that visitors may be apt to spend more money.
Kalispell will now have the opportunity to introduce itself to a wider audience. When it does, this newly formed board has its work cut out for it in making a good first impression.